My daughter is proof that you can survive – and thrive – after a brain haemorrhage

A few months ago, I watched as a doctor showed my elder daughter Banke some scans. She was fascinated by the images, which illustrated the massive brain haemorrhage she had suffered last year – a sinister, dark shape, not unlike a three-leaf clover, spreading across the left side of her cranium.

'Never in a million years did I think I would be in a position to discuss your scans with you,' the doctor – one of the many specialists who worked together to save my daughter's life – admitted. 'Most patients die, or are left severely disabled by such a catastrophic bleed.'

Banke, who is 16, took them home, and actually used them as part of her GCSE art coursework. She told me this was because what had happened to her was overwhelming, and this was her way of dealing with it all.

Amazing recovery: Banke Ajayi-Obe at home with her mother, Abiola

Indeed, that she is alive today is a
miracle and it is thanks to the prompt intervention of doctors – both at
my local hospital and at Great Ormond Street in London – and a
lifesaving operation that she has made such a remarkable recovery.

Banke has always been an ambitious and hard-working student. So when she complained of a headache in June last year, I assumed she was just tired after studying for her Year 10 exams at St Albans High School in Hertfordshire. I suggested she take a nap. When her headache didn't improve, I gave her ibuprofen and a few hours later told her to have a warm bath. I popped out briefly, but when I came back my mother Evelyn said she'd found Banke in the garden trying to cool down because her head was pounding.

During the night she woke up feeling hot and uncomfortable and went to sit in our bathroom, because it is the coolest room in the house. But once again I dismissed the symptoms because she was talking and acting normally.

Next morning I was getting ready to go to my job as interim legal services manager at Barnet General Hospital when my younger daughter Emi, now 11, screamed that Banke had collapsed in her bedroom. As I rushed to her, I could see Banke was having a fit. I held her tight, grabbed the phone and dialled 999.

We were rushed by ambulance to Barnet General where a team of doctors were waiting. A scan revealed the bleed was the result of a ruptured aneurysm – a weakness in the wall of the blood vessels.

Because the injury was neurological and Banke needed specialist care, she was moved to Great Ormond Street Hospital. Doctors explained that their first priority was to take the pressure off her brain and, under general anaesthetic, they inserted a drain to remove the accumulating fluid. They warned that if pressure continued to build up, her brain could suffer irreparable damage. My husband Yomi arrived, his face ashen – our world had been turned upside-down. It was too much to take in.

Once the pressure had been relieved, Dr Stefan Brew, a consultant interventional neuroradiologist, inserted a catheter into Banke's femoral artery in her groin, and navigated through her vascular system, through her heart, to the aneurysm in her head – a procedure that even now I find mind-boggling.

Using thread-like platinum coils, he plugged the bleed. The blood clots around the wire and turns into scar tissue, which stays in place permanently.

At the time Dr Brew was pessimistic. A third of patients with such a severe injury either die or are left disabled. He performs 200 adult aneurysm operations a year and over the past 11 years has carried out only ten on children. I knew the risks were high but I trusted him – this was my child's only chance of survival.

My younger daughter Emi, now 11,
screamed that Banke had collapsed in her bedroom. As I rushed to her, I
could see Banke was having a fit. I held her tight, grabbed the phone
and dialled 999.

The two-hour operation was an agonising wait, but never at any stage would Yomi and I allow ourselves to believe Banke wouldn't make it. After the operation Banke was put into an induced coma for 48 hours to allow doctors to monitor her brain. We were warned that when she woke, she would probably be different and that her body movement and speech might be affected. I was just glad she was still alive.

When Banke came round, she asked for Emi, which seemed normal as they are very close. Her movement seemed fine, apart from a numbness in her left hand. The only thing that seemed different was that she complained of distorted vision. Because the bleed had been behind her right eye, the nearby muscle had been pushed out of its normal position, affecting her sight. On the whole she seemed unscathed.

Banke had to keep the drain in her head while her wound healed and was kept in hospital for three weeks. She spent the summer holidays recovering, and last September began a phased return to school, going back full-time in April.

With some physiotherapy, her left hand is back to normal and her right eye is better too – although if she studies very hard she can get double vision. In January this year everything caught up with me. I went for counselling because I kept having visions of an ambulance turning up outside my house – thinking back to that day still sends a chill down my spine. But the experience has definitely brought us closer as a family.

Dr Brew remains astounded by how well she recovered. Subsequent scans have shown that she suffered no brain damage – although doctors will keep an eye on Banke's progress as she grows up. But she is so well, it really is as if it never happened.

Great Ormond Street aims to raise £4 million to fund two vital operating theatres to help critically ill neuroscience patients. To find out more or donate, call 020 7239 3000 or visit www.gosh.org/theatres.